


In the Bleak Midwinter

by Annakovsky



Category: Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Genre: Christmas, F/M, Holidays, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-12-13
Updated: 2004-12-13
Packaged: 2017-10-10 02:04:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Annakovsky/pseuds/Annakovsky
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nobody likes Christmas.</p>
            </blockquote>





	In the Bleak Midwinter

Alone outside on Christmas eve, a cigarette held precariously between his lips, Xander makes his first snow angel. The smoke looks like it stretches between him and the trees above him, between him and the moon, and snow is cold on the back of his head. He moves his arms and legs back and forth, clearing a space the way he's seen others do in movies and on TV, the rustling of his clothing and the crunching of the snow the only sounds.

"It snows in Chicago at Christmas," Buffy had said on the phone. "You're coming this year, right?"

Buffy is good at getting him to do things he'd rather not.

He pauses when he finishes making the snow angel, lying spread-eagled in the cold, smoking and enjoying the quiet. It's never quiet at Buffy's. His limbs feel heavy, attached to the earth.

"The trick is getting up," Dawn says, startling him. He hadn't heard her come outside. "Without wrecking the snow angel," she continues.

He raises his head to look at her, the cigarette still dangling from his lips. She has her arms wrapped around herself and looks cold, pale in the light reflecting off the snow. "Here," she says, and walks gingerly through the snow to his head. She leans down and plucks the cigarette from him. "Now, like, push yourself up really carefully."

He anticipates her putting out the cigarette, possibly lecturing him on lung cancer, but instead she puts it to her own lips and inhales smoothly. Xander watches her as he sits up, making sure not to use his hands and make a mark in the snow. She talks him through standing, and then hopping out so there aren't footprints by the angel. They both turn to regard it - the hollow of its head, the broad arms and legs, featureless and silhouetted.

"Awesome," Dawn says, and inhales again. She sighs out smoke. "I was wondering where you'd gone."

She hands him back the cigarette and he regards it, a red ring of lipstick staining the end. After a moment he puts his lips where hers were and inhales. "Noisy in there," he says, and moves to sit on the porch steps.

"It's always noisy here," Dawn says, sitting beside him. Her shoulder touches his. "Too many Slayers. Too many Watchers. And Buffy always bossing everybody around."

"Just like old times," Xander says, and Dawn takes the cigarette back from him. "Sort of," he finishes. Dawn is the same and not the same - taller, older, more confident, her hip nudging his, warm and sharp under her jeans. She is wearing a t-shirt that says _Mrs. Seth Cohen_. Earlier in the day she had informed Xander that this was "mostly ironic." She is so eighteen years old he aches with it.

"I'm kind of shocked you came here for the holidays," Dawn says. "I wouldn't, if I had a choice."

Xander takes the cigarette from her hand. "It's not that bad," he says.

Dawn gives him a withering look. "It's Christmas Eve and Buffy is in there yelling at everybody about all the slaying stuff they have to do. I have to sign up a week in advance if I want to get dibs on the TV. It totally is that bad."

"Well," Xander says, "Buffy's busy. I keep telling her she should either have a slayer boarding school *or* a detective agency. Both is too much."

"You don't have to do the Buffy apologist thing," Dawn says. "It's not very convincing." She takes the cigarette.

Xander shifts uneasily. "Buffy's my friend."

"Yeah," Dawn says, and passes him the cigarette. "That's why you haven't been here in a year."

Xander breathes in smoke and changes the subject. "So who all is going to be here for Christmas dinner, anyway?"

Dawn rolls her eyes. "Like, an army. You, me, Buffy, her new boyfriend..."

"... Kameron with a K..." Xander adds dryly.

Dawn snorts. "Yeah. Willow and her new girlfriend...."

"And can someone explain to me how she's dating someone who works for the IRS?" Xander asks.

"It's inexplicable," Dawn says. "Um, Giles, Andrew, Faith, Robin Wood, and like six of the slayers who are too lame to go home for Christmas."

"Aren't their parents dead?" Xander says, and hands Dawn the cigarette.

"Whatever," Dawn says. "I hate Christmas."

"As do I," Xander says. He watches the glowing end of the cigarette as it dangles from Dawn's white fingers. She is shivering a little bit, so the ember trembles, and he pulls off his coat to give to her.

"Thanks," she says as he wraps it around her.

"Yeah," he says. "Well, hey, at least we haven't been assigned any monsters to hunt, because I am so not in the mood."

"Yeah, we haven't been assigned any because Buffy thinks we're useless," Dawn mutters.

"Being useless," Xander says, "is what allows us to make our escape. Let's take a moment to be grateful."

They take a moment. It is very cold and very dark, and they pass the end of the cigarette back and forth, the smoke they exhale hovering between them. Xander begins to get goosebumps without his jacket - Chicago in December is cold cold cold, a fact Buffy had neglected to mention. For a Sunnydale boy, this is on the unacceptable side. But not unacceptable enough to force him back into the compound, even though his eye socket aches with cold.

Their companionable silence is broken when the door opens and the flood of indoor noise intrudes. Dawn, who is holding the cigarette, somehow manages with teenage skill to drop it and toe it out while hardly seeming to move a muscle. Xander is impressed in spite of himself.

Buffy is standing at the door. "Can you guys come in?" she asks, but it is in a tone that doesn't allow for refusal. "I've got a job for you."

As Xander and Dawn stand up, Xander leans into Dawn and whispers, "Not so useless now, are we?"

Dawn gives him a look. "Yeah, we'll see."

***

Buffy wants them to find the baby Jesus.

***

"I told you she thinks we're useless," Dawn says, kicking at a clump of snow as they walk down the sidewalk towards St. Catherine's. "Everyone else is out on a raid of the lair of the most dangerous vampires since prohibition, and we're looking for a life-size plaster baby Jesus stolen from a nativity scene."

"It is on the lame side," Xander admits.

"I mean, Father Mike is cool and all," Dawn says, "but I don't see why he thinks we can find it. Him. Whatever."

Xander sighs. "So what, we go to the scene of the alleged theft and see if we can pick up clues?"

"I guess," Dawn says. She pulls her green puffy coat closer around herself. They're halfway down the block before she abruptly says, "Why aren't you a Scooby anymore? Why don't you ever come here?"

Xander shoves his hands deeper into the pockets of his jeans, and very, very emphatically does not know how to answer. "I'm here now," he says finally.

"Yeah, whatever," Dawn mutters. Her shoulders are hunched and she walks in a staccato sort of way that's clearly holding back anger.

"What do you want me to say, Dawn?" Xander asks, and it comes out more bitterly than he intended.

"I don't care! Just say *something*!" Dawn says heatedly. "You keep sitting around and being quiet, and distant, and... and *nice* - I hate it. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it."

Xander is taken aback, and a little angry, so he breathes deep and says, light and jokey, "You want me to be mean?"

"I just want you to be *here*," Dawn says, and gives him a look of such complete frustration and anger that it almost stops him right where he stands. She storms off ahead of him, walking so fast he can't keep up.

He follows her bright jacket for several blocks, right up to the manger, not knowing exactly what the hell is going on. Dawn is subdued when he reaches her. "Yeah, so there's, like, footprints," Dawn says. "Kids, I think. There's this bunch of middle school boys that are always running around being assholes, and it could be them."

"Great," Xander says. "Do you know where they would be?"

Dawn shrugs irritably without looking at him. "I dunno, they hang out in a couple of places around. In the park. Outside the school. In the Jewel parking lot. We could check there."

"Lead the way," Xander says, and they start walking.

After a few minutes, Dawn bumps him with her shoulder a little bit as she walks, like they're friends again. He bumps back, and they walk for a bit with their shoulders touching through their thick winter coats. Xander's eye itches, so he reaches up to adjust his eye patch and Dawn looks sideways at him. "Have you ever thought about getting a glass eye, instead of having the patch?"

"Nah, not really," Xander says, shoving his hands back in his coat pockets. Should really get some gloves.

"Why not?"

"I don't know," Xander says. "I just... don't mind the patch. It'd be weird to have it so no one could tell the eye was even missing."

"Plus, this way Buffy winces every time she sees you," Dawn says.

Xander doesn't say anything for a few steps, their feet crunching in the snow. "I wish you'd stop poking at me like that," he says quietly as they turn a corner.

"What?" Dawn says.

"If you're mad at Buffy, be mad at Buffy, but stop trying to make me, I don't know, lose it or whatever."

Dawn walks a little harder, her boots punching at the thin layer of snow still on the sidewalk. "Sorry," she mutters. Xander bumps her with his shoulder again and she breathes a little shakily. "I fucking hate Christmas," she says.

"Welcome to the world," Xander says.

***

They find the baby Jesus in the dumpster behind the local supermarket.

"They put Jesus in the dumpster?" Dawn says as Xander fishes the plaster figure out. "Well, I guess I know some middle schoolers who are totally going to hell."

Xander smiles, shakes the banana peels off, and hands it over to Dawn so he can wipe his hands off on his jeans. "Mission accomplished," he says, drying his hands, but when he glances up, Dawn is staring at Jesus with a stricken look on her face.

"They broke him," she says in a small voice. As a matter of fact, the figure's nose is completely missing and the whole right side of its face is badly chipped.

Xander winces. "Let me see if the nose is in here." He starts half-heartedly poking around in the garbage, which lies under a thin layer of snow. It doesn't take long for it to become clear that this is a fruitless exercise, but when he looks over to point this out to Dawn, she is crying silently, tears running down her face as she holds the damaged baby in front of her.

"Dawn?" he says, a little alarmed.

She opens her mouth to say something, but just makes a gasping sobbing sort of noise, and sits down abruptly on the curb, cradling the broken baby Jesus on her lap.

Xander sits down beside her, snow cold on his ass. He tentatively pats her on the shoulder.

"I don't know why I'm crying," Dawn chokes out, and kind of tries to laugh.

"It's okay," Xander says. He will never understand girls, not in a kajillion years. He puts his arm around Dawn and she leans her head against him so he can feel tears on his neck, hot and damp and sticky. There might be some snot in there, actually, with the sticky.

"Oh my god, I am so emo you might as well kill me right now and play Dashboard Confessional at my funeral," Dawn says quietly, so that he doesn't hear it so much as feel the vibrations of it in his chest and shoulder and neck. He laughs.

"This is the thing," she says, and straightens up so she isn't leaning on him anymore. Her voice is still thick, but she isn't exactly crying. Instead she is still and definite and subdued in a way that's almost worse. "You know what happened when Jesus was born?" she says, looking down at the plaster figure in her lap. "The king killed all the other babies in Bethlehem, trying to kill Jesus." Dawn is fingering the borders of where Jesus' nose used to be, the cracked edge that divides the painted outside of the plaster from the broken stark white inside.

"Yeah?" Xander says.

"Yeah," Dawn says, and touches each of the chipped places on Jesus' face in turn. "So you have all these nativity scenes, right, and they're all happy and pretty and innocent baby Jesus and virgin Mary and silent night and blah blah blah. But really, it was murdered babies."

"Oh," Xander says. The absurdity of it suddenly strikes him - here he and Dawn are, sitting against a dumpster in the middle of the night on Christmas eve with a broken baby Jesus cradled between them. Like an anti-nativity scene.

"Besides which, you have this perfect baby, all safe and angels singing and shepherds and whatever, but he grows up to get tortured and *die*, you know?"

Xander pauses. "Well, we all die, Dawn."

"That's what I *mean*," Dawn says, sounding more agitated. "I mean, there you are with no eye, and here Jesus is with no nose, and it's Christmas and we should be happy, but we're not, none of us are, and that's just *life*, and there's nothing we can do about it."

"Dawn," Xander says, and trails off, not knowing what to say. He takes baby Jesus out of her hands and holds it in front of him. Jesus has obviously been in use for many years - his paint is fading and chipped, and the recent damage is just an addition to the other wear and tear that's happened over time. But for some reason, this just makes him look... real. Or something. Like a teddy bear that's gotten its fur all loved off. "Being broken's not so bad," Xander says.

"It is *too*," Dawn says.

Xander smiles at her and gets to his feet, brushing snow off his jeans. He holds out a hand to help her up. "Let's go put Jesus back in his manger and then go see if there's any eggnog left. Before the slayers come home and drink it all."

Dawn takes his hand and he pulls her up, overbalancing slightly as he does so that he tips back against the dumpster. He laughs sheepishly and starts to push himself upright. But suddenly Dawn puts her hand on his chest and holds him against the dumpster, all cold and metal at his back, and she is *kissing* him, kissing him like, like, not like *Dawn* should be kissing, except that it is exactly how Dawn should be kissing, all the time, just like this. The zipper of her coat is jabbing him uncomfortably, and the dumpster is seriously freezing, but Dawn is warm and tastes like tears and hot chocolate and nicotine. The baby Jesus is lying in the snow at their feet as they kiss and kiss, Dawn pressing him back so their bodies are flush against each other.

"Dawn," he says, when she pulls back to breathe, and her face falls a little bit.

"Sorry," she says, and steps back. "Um. Like. Yeah. Merry Christmas. Or whatever."

"No, I didn't mean... that was good, actually," Xander says. "I just...."

"Yeah," Dawn says, shoving her hands into the pockets of her jacket and looking down.

"We probably shouldn't...."

"I get it," Dawn says. "I know." She picks Jesus up off the ground, cradling him as though he's a real baby, and starts back towards the church without looking at Xander. He follows a few steps behind, hurrying to catch up.

Once he's walking next to her again, he says, "Dawn?"

"Shut up, Xander," she says, and they walk the rest of the way to the nativity scene in silence, because he doesn't know what to say.

At the church, Dawn walks right up to the manger and lays Jesus in it carefully, beside the plaster Mary and Joseph. The spotlights make her stand out bright in the darkness, and Xander walks up beside her to get a last look at the broken Jesus.

"Welcome to earth, Jesus," Dawn says as she straightens up, almost to herself. "It's cold and hard and violent, and you don't have a nose anymore. And it's not like it's going to get any better from here on out, because it's going to be all pain and loss and failure, believe me. But you supposedly created it, so I guess it's your fault anyway. Merry fucking Christmas."

She turns and walks away without looking back, and Xander again finds himself jogging to keep up.

"Did you just tell Jesus to have a merry fucking Christmas?" Xander asks when he catches her. He feels slightly hysterical, on the verge of laughter and tears and *something* bubbling up, like giggling but not.

"I sure did."

"Well," Xander says. "Well. You are only the coolest person ever."

"I know," Dawn says. She is smiling to herself now, walking through the snowdrifts by stepping in the footprints she and Xander had left earlier. The moonlight reflects off the snow, giving the night that strange winter lightness, and he can't stop thinking about kissing her.

When they get back to the house, it is lit up and noisy, even from the outside. The Christmas lights strung up on the right side have gone out, but the left side is still there in all its multi-colored glory, and through the windows Xander can see the enormous tree Giles had insisted on, all covered in lights and ornaments.

"I guess the slayers are h-," Xander starts to say, but Dawn grabs the front of his coat and shoves him against the side of the house. Before he manages to wrap his head around the fact that she is kissing him again, she's finished, and he just has the impression of tongue and teeth and the back of his head bumping the brick.

"Home," Xander finishes, dazed.

"C'mon," Dawn says, and she is so close to him that her breath is warm on his neck. "Let's go tell Buffy that we found Jesus. And then maybe open presents."

"Um. Okay," Xander says, and they go inside.

***

END


End file.
